Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication systems; and, more particularly, to wireless communication access node (WCANs) devices implemented within such communication systems.
Description of Related Art
Communication systems support wireless and wire lined communications between wireless and/or wire lined communication devices. The systems can range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems, to the Internet, to point-to-point in-home wireless networks and can operate in accordance with one or more communication standards. For example, wireless communication systems may operate in accordance with one or more standards including, but not limited to, IEEE 802.11x (where x may be various extensions such as a, b, n, g, etc.), Bluetooth, advanced mobile phone services (AMPS), digital AMPS, global system for mobile communications (GSM), etc., and/or variations thereof.
In prior art mobile communication systems, dedicated components therein operate to perform certain operations including those associated with billing operations. For example, when a mobile device connects to a prior art mobile communication system, a dedicated component operates to monitor and track communications of the mobile device to effectuate accurate billing such as based on an account associated with a user of the mobile device. Such an implementation of using dedicated components within prior art mobile communication systems to perform certain functions can be very inefficient in terms of the pathways that data must travel therein. For example, such within a prior art mobile communication system communications may suffer from a trombone effect such that the communications need to traverse very indirect pathways and sometimes double-back over the same or nearby pathways. Such a trombone effect may occur when dedicated components within the prior art mobile communication system are located relatively far from the mobile device and/or other mobile device(s) and/or other networks with which the mobile device communicates and interacts. There continues to be a need in the art for improvement in the implementation and operation of mobile communication systems.